Sisi meets prominent Egyptian businessmen

CAIRO: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi met Wednesday with a number of Egyptian businessmen to discuss ways to boost the economic situation during the coming phase, Youm7 reported.

Present at the meeting were several prominent businessmen and investors including Naguib Sawiris, Mohamed al-Amin, Ahmad abu-Hashima, Mohamed Farid Khamis and Mohamed abu-Alenin.

During the meeting, the president demonstrated his general vision on the future of Egypt’s economy saying that he is not going to take their money by force as he believes in law enforcement.

“The country is going to take a group of decisions, do whatever it takes to encourage foreign investors, and meet the demands of the low-income people accordingly,” Sisi said.

As for the recent decision to raise the fuel prices, Sisi said that he had to cut the subsidies on energy in order to control the soared budget deficit and that he did that for the “interest of the nation.”

In late June, Sisi has rejected a draft of the general budget and tasked the Cabinet with lowering the deficit from 12 percent. However, a week later, he approved the budget with a deficit of 240 billion Egyptian pounds (19.71 billion pounds) representing 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP.)